Study: Marijuana usage increases risk of academic problems

For something known as a “gateway” drug, marijuana can shut the door on opportunity, especially for college students.

The University of Maryland School of Public Health released a report last week that connects student marijuana use and problems with academic retention and performance.

“It’s not rocket science, this stuff has been known for quite some time,” says Amelia Arria, director for the Center on Young Adult Health and Development.

The study followed 1,200 college freshmen over a 10-year period and found that substance use, “especially marijuana use,” contributed to “college students skipping more classes, spending less time studying, earning lower grades, dropping out of college, and being unemployed after college.” It adds that early chronic use can lower your IQ as many as eight points.

“It’s really the first time that such an intense look at the health-risk behaviors of college students has been linked to the post-college functioning,” Arria says.

University of Maryland School of Public Health

One major focus of the report examines the “discontinuous enrollment” — or not being enrolled for one or more semesters — of students and compares it with how often they used marijuana during all four years of college.

Marijuana users were broken down into categories from minimal users, those who smoked only a handful of times, to frequent and heavy users.

The study found that “even after controlling for the effects of demographics, high school GPA, and personality variables” heavy users — those who smoked more than 15 times a month — were “twice as likely” to experience discontinuous enrollment than minimal users.

Even infrequent users — those who smoked about twice a month — were 66% more likely than minimal users to be discontinuously enrolled.

Arria says this confirms what others have seen. She tells of a student in Washington, D.C., who has witnessed other students taking an academic “nose dive” after becoming involved with marijuana.

“On average, (marijuana use) increases your risk of having academic problems,” says Arria. “I don’t think people are really putting this together with the possible effect it could have on long-term success. … It’s something people really need to consider.”

Jason Kilmer, research assistant professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington, points to other research showing that 33% of college students reported using marijuana at least once in 2011.

Kilmer says multiple studies have shown that marijuana use can cause problems with “memory, concentration, attention,” and that increased use leads to “more pronounced problems in those domains.”

“I think that when you look at the research that has been done, with even college students as the focus, some of the really interesting areas that have been identified … include impact on cognitive effects, which certainly could have an impact in the college setting,” says Kilmer.

Beyond the effects on health and academic performance, the risk of marijuana-related criminal charges present other problems for college students.

Under a provision of the Higher Education Act, students who have been convicted of a drug charge — even minor marijuana offenses — are ineligible for federal financial aid, loans or work-study.

Aaron Houston, executive director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, says because of the stipulation, “200,000 college students have been denied financial aid because of a drug arrest or minor drug offense.

“Unfortunately, I think there is still a stigma that drug warriors very actively try to keep alive that leads to societal disapproval in certain instances,” Houston says.

A recent poll by Pew Research Center showed — for the first time in decades — that the majority of Americans are in favor of legalizing the use of marijuana.

An unintended consequence of drug warriors upholding these “horrible laws,” Houston says, is that “it galvanizes a generation of young people to try and change these laws.”

What’s next?

Because of the change in the legal climate — including the recent moves to legalize marijuana in Colorado and Washington state — Kilmer says we’re likely to see a lot more interest in new research on the subject.